On 6 December, Florentino Gómez Girón, leader of the Ricardo Flores Magón Popular Front (FPRFM) from Ixtapa, was released from prison after his nephew immolated himself before the state congress in Tuxtla Gutiérrez the previous day. Agustín Gómez Pérez, 21 years of age, doused himself in gasoline and asked one of his friends to light him on fire to demand the release of his uncle who has been held in the Amate prison since 1 May 2014. His probability of survival is very low. Following the release of Gómez Girón, those who had maintained the blockade of the state congress since 10 November suspended their sit-in.

Gómez Girón had been charged for the crime of robbery of cattle. There are still another four arrest-orders against him on the charges of organized crime, kidnapping, use of firearms restricted for the Army, and planned plundering, according to information from the Subsecretary for Human Rights at the Secretary of Governance. The FPRFM indicates all these charges as having been fabricated.

Since 10 November, relatives of Florentino Gómez Girón (who has been held in the no. 14 prison of El Amate in Cintalapa since 1 May, on the charge of robbing cattle) and members of the “Ricardo Flores Magón” Popular Front have maintained a sit-in before the Chiapas state-congress in Tuxtla Gutiérrez to demand the release of Gómez Girón. Some days later, after having denounced “governmental indifference” and suffered police harassment and the threat of displacement using public force, those who comprised the sit-in began a hunger strike, sutured their lips, and participated in a mock crucifixion before the congress.

Filemón Gómez reported that the health of seven of the ten hunger strikes has declined, adding that they are presenting fluctuations in blood pressure, weakness of the extremities, nausea, dizziness, risk of infection, and gangrenous symptoms due to the sutures. In this way, she added that protestors had had no contact with state authorities to address the case.

Juana Gómez, daughter to Florentino, mentioned that her father was arrested in Tuxtla Gutiérrez after a teachers’ march by two persons dressed in civilian clothes. He was neither accused of any crime nor provided any evidence of having done so, and to date, no convincing evidence implicating Florentino Gómez has been revealed. Furthermore, she affirmed that he was targeted for his political activism.

On 20 November, in observance of the Day for Global Action for Ayotzinapa, protests were held in solidarity with the relatives of the disappeared students from Ayotzianapa in many cities throughout the world. From three points in Mexico City, thousands of persons marched, accompanying caravans of students and relatives of the disappeared from Ayotzinapa to arrive at the rally in the Zócalo of the capital. After the rally, when the mobilization that had been peaceful to that point ended, a group of youth launched rockets and attempted to break down the principal entrance of the National Palace. Riot police intervened against them, as against the rest of the protestors who had not participated in this intensified phase. People were injured and arrested, but the authorities have not released any official data. Meanwhile, on social networks photographs emerged demonstrating presumed infiltrators in the protests, who were placed there supposedly to destabilize the protests.

The parents of the 43 disappeared students from Ayotzinapa expressed, before hundreds of thousands of people assembled in Mexico City’s Zócalo, that “this is not just about Guerrero: all throughout Mexico there are secret graves full of persons who have been executed outside the law and forcibly disappeared.” This was their conclusion following the tour they carried out in several states of the country during the previous week, including the north and south of the country. At the act at the Zócalo, one of the organizers reported that in more than 185 cities of the world, people had come out to the streets to demand the presentation with life of the 43 disappeared students.

In Chiapas, thousands of students, teachers, campesinos, and citizens in general marched in a dozen municipalities to demand the presentation of the students who were disappeared on 26 September. At least 4000 marched peacefully in the capital Tuxtla Gutiérrez. In San Cristóbal de las Casas, a protest was organized that counted with the participation of a thousand people. After a group of presumed infiltrators burned down shops after looted them, a strong police presence was deployed, leading to the arrest of several protestors. Regardless, the police had been nowhere to be seen until 2pm; the morning of the protest progressed without any visible police presence. The protestors distanced themselves from the counter-violence that was exhibited at the beginning of the march, when some set an Oxxo and part of a Soriana store on fire. They accused the government of sending agents provocateurs. Later, authorities announced the arrest of 13 “anarchists.” Also in Comitán, Venustiano Carranza, Ocosingo, Tapachula, as elsewhere, protests were held. Dissidents shared similar slogans, including, “You took them alive; alive we want them back,” and “Zapata lives; the struggle continues!”

Social activists and human rights defenders have denounced the Green Chiapas Foundation before the National Commission for the Prevention against Discrimination (CONAPRED) for having launched a campaign against same-sex marriage.

Two public advertisements were installed on 18 and 19 January Tuxtla Gutiérrez, the state capital of Chiapas, emblazoned with the following words: “No to the legalization of initiatives that contradict the orders of God (abortion, gay marriage, legalization of marijuana, etc.).” On one of the ads comes the signature of the Chiapas Green Foundation AC, led by a magistrate from Chilón, Leonardo Rafael Guirao Aguilar.

The Chiapas delegation from the Network for Sexual and Reproductive Rights in Mexico (DDSSER) has condemned the campaign and requested an investigation to come to know the origins of the economic resources used in this campaign. Delegate members claim that this campaign violates human rights and the law, given that the Mexican Constitution prohibits discrimination for sexual discrimination. “Mexico has signed a number of international agreements which commit it to defend the rights of all its citizens,” noted the DDSSER Network.

In observance of the International Day of Non-Violence toward Women on 25 November, different collectives and organizations carried out acts of denunciation in the capital of Oaxaca. A caravan-march carrying dozens of paper coffins representing the 240 femicides that have taken place during the administration of Gabino Cué took to the streets of the city to Santa María Ixcotel, where participants demanded the punishment of the murderers and clarification of the cases. The organization Consorcio for Parliamentary Dialogue and Gender Equity denounced the inefficacy of the Oaxacan justice system which via omission has allowed for an increase in disappearances and murders against women, stressing that 99% of the cases find themselves unresolved, with the perpetrators unpunished. In this sense, Consorcio accuses judges of partiality and demands that sentences incorporate gender perspectives. Beyond this, members of the National Network of Young Pro-Choice Catholics carried out a march through downtown Oaxaca City which ended at the Palace of Governance, where flowers and crosses were left behind to represent the murdered women, and protestors demanded that the government put an end to the impunity amidst the increase in femicides and sexual violence.

This same day, non-governmental organizations in Chiapas demanded that the state government declare a Gender Violence Alert. These groups denounced “the incessant violence against women in Chiapas and the different forms of violence against women and their extreme conclusion: femicide.” They recalled that, so far this year (January-October 2013), the number of deaths of women has reached 84, 71 of whom were killed violently. On 24 November, the Indigenous Center for Comprehensive Development and Training (CIDECI) received more than 200 persons who participated in a “Meeting against violence against women and femicide in Chiapas.” Participants engaged in dialogue regarding three fundamental problems: structural violence, femicide, and women’s health. The next day, there was a march of women through the streets of San Cristóbal de Las Casas which raised the slogans “No more violence against women” and “Patriarchy kills.” In parallel terms, a juridical commission submitted a petition for a Gender Violence Alert to the Secretary of State Governance, based in Tuxtla Gutiérrez. Also in observance of the International Day against Violence against Women, Mayan peoples and theists from the northern region of the state released a press-release denouncing these types of forms of violence. The document, among other things, mentions that “domestic violence is ever-worsening in our communities, as worsened by the consumption and sale of alcohol. The trade in alcohol principally affects WOMEN and CHILDREN.”

Also on 25 November, in Guerrero, President Enrique Peña Nieto announced the construction of a Center of Justice to provide legal, psychological, and economic support for women who are victims of violence in the state. The center was inaugurated in Tlapa, in the Mountain region, and it represents the first phase of a communal project called Women’s City, which seeks to build offices to provide comprehensive attention to women who suffer violence or have been abandoned or trafficked.

Professor Alberto Patishtán Gómez arrived on 30 November to Chiapas, after spending several weeks in radiotherapy at the National Institute for Neurology and Neurosurgery “Manuel Velasco Suárez” in Mexico City to treat a brain tumor which appeared in 2012. Dozens of indigenous persons from the Believing People organization of the San Cristóbal de Las Casas diocese arrived at the Tuxtla Gutiérrez airport to greet Professor Patishtán, but the authorities prevented them from passing to the waiting hall, arguing that there was no space. Some of those present felt it unacceptable to be blocked access to Patishtán, as they did not even count a hundred among them.

From the airport the entourage traveled to the Cathedral of San Cristóbal de Las Casas, where Alberto visited the tomb of Bishop Samuel Ruiz García and celebrated mass. During the event, a communique written by the Believing People was read, saying: “Welcome, brother Alberto. The call for justice grew among the people, the voices of men and women with just and generous hearts were raised throughout Chiapas and many places in Mexico and, indeed, the whole world; the decisions and denigration of the courts did not silence us; they made themselves blind and deaf to our humble voices, and so indignation and the desire for justice grew within us for you and for all the people, for the indigenous, for the non-indigenous, for the sick, the persecuted, the incarcerated, the disappeared, and the poor.” It ended by noting “the truth of your unjust sentence and unjust incarceration; now we are here together, you and we, and we are all a bit freer for it.”

The next day, 1 December, Alberto reached his home in the community of San Juan El Bosque. The Tsotsil people of El Bosque welcomed him with the presence of hundreds. The professor said that he was “not only content but also happy.” Professor Martín Ramírez expressed in the name of the Movement of El Bosque in Defense of the People: “we all won, and we will celebrate another victory.”

Different mobilizations took place on 12 October in the state of Chiapas to commemorate 521 years of indigenous, black, and popular resistance, as well as to protest the neoliberal policies being developed by the cabinet of the government of Enrique Peña Nieto.

In San Cristóbal de las Casas, thousands of persons marched in an event organized by the Movement of Social Organizations of the State of Chiapas, a group which brings together a dozen indigenous and campesino organizations in the state. “After a long march and a few difficult moments, we arrived today to this great effort toward unity to once again march together […]. We struggle to defend our rights, the national sovereignty, the territory, natural goods and resources, mineral wealth, and the rights of the peoples to exploit these in a sustainable manner, and moreover we affirm the right to develop the territory and to realize the peoples’ demands,” declared members of the Movement.

In other cities such as Ocosingo and Palenque there were also held different protest activities, such as roadblocks, occupations of city halls, and marches.

In Tuxtla Gutiérrez, the state capital, at least 10 thousand persons, members of different organizations such as the National Coordination of Educational Workers (CNTE), health workers, and employees of the Institute of Social Security for Workers of the State of Chiapas (ISSTECH) marched to protest the educational reform and the totality of structural reforms imposed by the federal government in the spheres of health, housing, and energy.